DataNB
The latest from the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training
BoostNB Student Spotlight: Meet the Students Measuring New Brunswick’s Economic Progress
Leen, Minh Dao, Kiet Phan
Posted: January 15, 2024 12:00:00 AM AST
Category: Economics , Student Spotlights , Pathways to Professions , Training
BoostNB has been a research stream in the Pathways to Professions experiential learning program since 2020, and in 2023 we welcomed three new students to continue the work of analyzing and sharing New Brunswick’s economic progress. The mission of BoostNB is to help boost knowledge of the NB economy and measure its progress towards specific goals and targets inspired by Nova Scotia’s Now or Never Action Plan. Student researchers crafted economic indicators for NB using open-source...
Ignite Student Spotlight: Meet the Students Conducting an Economic Analysis of the Fredericton Capital Region
Yara Bayoumi, Ivy Bialowas, Estefania Martinez
Posted: November 13, 2023 12:00:00 AM AST
Category: Pathways to Professions , Partners , Student Spotlights , Population Research , Media , Economics , Training
Economic development is a key focus for researchers in New Brunswick, and this led NB-IRDT to partner with Ignite in 2023 to provide our Pathways to Professions (P2P) students with a key new experiential learning opportunity. For 13 weeks this summer, the 2023 Ignite student team worked under the mentorship of Andrew Lockhart (Director of Economic & Entrepreneurial Growth at Ignite) to develop an economic analysis of the Fredericton Capital Region. Since its regionalization in early 2023, the...
Immigrant Retention in New Brunswick: 2022 Update
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: November 21, 2022 12:00:00 AM AST
Category: Labour Markets , Economics
The population of New Brunswick is always changing. Children are born, students graduate, and families move around looking for new opportunities. In recent years, change has been even more rampant, with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting factors like immigration, population mobility, and remote work opportunities. Because New Brunswickers and the world around them keep changing, so does our research. As more recent data become available with the passing years, we revisit some projects and...
BoostNB Student Spotlight: Meet the Students Measuring New Brunswick’s Economic Progress
BoostNB Student Spotlight: Meet the Students Measuring New Brunswick’s Economic Progress
Posted: October 4, 2022 12:00:00 AM ADT
Category: Economics , Training , Pathways to Professions
What is BoostNB? BoostNB is an online dashboard of economic indicators first created by student researchers back in 2018 and updated every year using open-source data to determine whether the NB economy is progressing towards specific goals and targets. BoostNB has been a P2P research stream since the program launched in 2020. It provides post-secondary students in NB the opportunity to pursue their passion for economics and create positive change in their communities by making pertinent...
Manufacturing Employment in New Brunswick
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: February 2, 2022 12:00:00 AM AST
Category: Media , Labour Markets , Population Research , Economics
There is a narrative in New Brunswick that our province is falling further and further behind the rest of Canada in terms of economic and population growth, and “catching up” is a nearly impossible task to accomplish. Fortunately, this narrative is not entirely true. To promote progress and prosperity in the province, it is important to not only examine our weaknesses but also to better understand our strengths. The more we know about NB’s successes, the more likely we are...
Student Spotlight: Meet the BoostNB Team
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: November 22, 2021 12:00:00 AM AST
BoostNB is a student research stream in the Pathways to Professions (P2P) experiential learning program at NB-IRDT. Launched in 2018 by Dr. Herb Emery, Vaughan Chair of Regional Economics, BoostNB serves as a dashboard of economic indicators that aims to provide straightforward, fact-based information about New Brunswick and its economy. This summer, BoostNB was comprised of four undergraduate students from Saint Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick. Under the...
Are there Labour Shortages in Canada’s Transport Sector?
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: November 2, 2021 12:00:00 AM ADT
Category: Economics
If you have watched the news lately, you may have seen long lines of vehicles blocking roads around the UK as drivers waited for a chance to fuel up. The emerging gas shortage overseas is just one symptom resulting from a truck driver shortage in Great Britain, with food and medicine shortages following to a lesser extent. A labour shortage in the Transportation industry can clearly have serious, far-reaching consequences. So, how does employment in Canada’s Transport Sector measure...
Retention and Labour Market Outcomes of Registered Apprentices in New Brunswick
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: November 1, 2021 12:00:00 AM ADT
Apprenticeships are a long-standing and valuable part of the training and education system in New Brunswick). Over the last decade, interests in apprenticeship programs have risen, driven chiefly by concerns over current and future shortages of tradespersons. Efforts to encourage young Canadians, especially those not university-bound, to become skilled tradespersons have increased in hopes of remedying shortages within skilled trades. In a recently released report, the New Brunswick...
UNB Students Take Hands-On Approach to Research and Policy in New Brunswick
Bethany Jones
Posted: October 28, 2021 12:00:00 AM ADT
Category: Population Research , Economics , Education , Health , Training
The end of 2021 is in sight, and as countries around the world begin to emerge from COVID-19 lockdowns, there is a universal air of uncertainty about the future. In New Brunswick, however, this uncertainty predated the pandemic. For the past few years, the province of New Brunswick has been struggling to address the problems of an aging population, the out-migration of its youth, a shrinking labour force, and the impact these issues have on an already overly burdened health care system....
Who Are New Brunswick’s Low-Skilled Workers?
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: September 1, 2021 12:00:00 AM ADT
Category: Labour Markets , Datasets , Economics
What does it mean to be low-skilled in New Brunswick? And which New Brunswickers are most likely to have low levels of skills in the workplace? NB-IRDT researchers explore these questions in a recent report, in which they construct profiles of low-skilled workers in the province. By focusing on groups with low levels of education, jobs with low skills requirements, and low income, they examine the proportion of low-skilled...
Student Spotlight: Income Evolution in New Brunswick
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: May 3, 2021 12:00:00 PM ADT
Category: Economics
Some New Brunswickers are more vulnerable to social, educational, and health issues than others – and low income is a significant factor contributing to their vulnerability. Policies and programs targeting low-income groups could help reduce vulnerability going forward, but how do we know which NB populations to target? This summer, Pathways to Professions student Madeleine Gorman-Asal examined income evolution across population segments in NB. As part of the PopNB initiative to...
Student Spotlight: Real GDP Growth in New Brunswick
NB-IRDT Staff
Posted: February 12, 2021 12:00:00 PM AST
Category: Labour Markets , Economics
The economic recession of 2008 severely impacted GDP growth in New Brunswick – not only at the time, but also for the years that followed. If the province’s GDP growth rates were on par with the Canadian average, NB would see higher tax revenue, more funding for public services, and greater interest from prospective businesses. So, how does our GDP growth measure up? This summer, Pathways to Professions student Thomas Campbell examined real GDP growth in NB. As part of the...
Student Spotlight: Tourism Expansion in New Brunswick
NB-IRDT
Posted: January 11, 2021 12:00:00 PM AST
Category: Pathways to Professions , Economics
Tourism has a direct impact on the development of the New Brunswick economy, contributing toward employment and income creation. The Government of New Brunswick’s tourism growth strategy states that NB should aim to increase GDP generated through tourism by 57% -- reaching $2 billion by 2025. Are we on track to meet this goal? This summer, Pathways to Professions student Aya Benotmane examined tourism expansion in NB. As part of the BoostNB initiative to measure the...
New Brunswick Labour Force Participation
NB-IRDT
Posted: November 2, 2020 12:00:00 PM AST
Category: Economics , Population Research , Youth
The size of a region’s labour force is typically affected by the makeup of the population. In New Brunswick, the general population is aging, while the youth population is shrinking. What could these factors mean for labour force participation in NB? This summer, Pathways to Professions student Thomas Campbell examined labour force participation rates in NB. As part of the BoostNB initiative to measure the province’s progress toward economic goals, he looked at whether NB labour...
NB-IRDT Research Featured in Food Security Webinar
NB-IRDT
Posted: June 2, 2020 12:00:00 PM ADT
Food insecurity touches at least one in every six households in New Brunswick. It takes many forms: anxiety about running out of food, missing meals, and not being able to afford food. NB-IRDT platform research featured prominently in “What the Food?” a Food for All NB webinar on May 20. The first in a series on New Brunswick’s food sector, the talk was titled “Household Food Insecurity & New Brunswick” and featured research by Dr. Valerie Tarasuk of the...
NB-IRDT COVID-19 projections show good news for NB
NB-IRDT
Posted: April 8, 2020 2:00:00 PM ADT
UNB’s New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data, and Training’s 10-day COVID-19 outcome model shows New Brunswick is currently tracking towards a best-case scenario outcome, according to data as of April 7. NB-IRDT researchers, led by Dr. Ted McDonald, developed their prediction models by looking at outcome data as of March 31, 2020 from other countries with a range of COVID-19 response strategies, from strict lockdowns and widespread testing to slow implementation of...
The cost of workplace cancers
NBIRDT Staff
Posted: March 9, 2020 12:00:00 AM ADT
Many jobs in New Brunswick involve regular exposure to carcinogens. While it is difficult—and in many cases impossible—to prove a case of cancer was caused by exposure to workplace carcinogens, some occupations are highly correlated with certain types of cancer. But until fairly recently, few occupational cancer cases qualified for Workers Compensation coverage. Firefighters have long waged a battle to prove that their jobs put them at an increased risk for certain types of...
Study shows NB library use increasing
Mara Mallory
Posted: January 8, 2020 4:00:00 PM AST
Category: Population Research , Economics
New Brunswickers still love the province’s traditional libraries despite rapid technological and social change over the past decade, according to research from the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data, and Training at the University of New Brunswick. NB-IRDT researchers looked at numbers of active library cards and how many items (both physical and electronic) were checked out from 2010 to 2018. Despite increasing availability of free electronic reading material, inexpensive...
Immigrants as permanent residents
Mara Mallory
Posted: November 7, 2019 12:00:00 AM AST
Category: Evidence-based Policy , Economics , Population Research , Labour Markets
It’s easy to track how many immigrants are accepted into a province as permanent residents through immigration programs. It is much harder to keep track of what happens after they arrive. Many New Brunswickers are counting on immigration to help alleviate the economic and social challenges we face as a result of NB’s demographic challenges. For New Brunswick to fully benefit from immigration, we need to dig deeper to understand the immigrant experience once they arrive in our...